3. If you could change the way we provide services to children with disabilities, what would you recommend?
If I could change the way we provide services to children with disabilities I would recommend that we stop labeling students. When we label students we let them think that they are different than everyone else and therefore do not have to try has hard. For example, I subbed in a Special day Class for three days and was able to work with 8 boys who have been labeled and classified. During my time with them I noticed there was one boy in particular that knew he had learning disabilities and constantly used that as his excuse for doing poorly on his assignments. If he didn’t have that label he would not be able to use that excuse and he would actually be held accountable for his own education. If we treat every student equally they will not be so afraid to try hard. I also believe that we should provide services to all students whether they are classified or not. In my second quarter of student teaching I worked with a student who could have really benefited from some additional services like RSP or Speech therapy and when I asked the resident teacher why this child didn’t have an IEP she said that the parents refused because they did not want their child labeled for the rest of their lives. There are several students in a regular classroom that could benefit from special accommodations but cannot receive these services because either they have not been classified or they have been classified and their parents refuse to get them the services they need to improve their education because they do not want their child labeled. So I think if we could eliminate as much of the labeling as possible we would be able to provide more services to more students.
